A day with the Barcelona Gipsy balKan Orchestra at the Palau
A full day with the Barcelona Gipsy balKan Orchestra: rehearsals, soundcheck and a memorable concert at the Palau de la Música Catalana, as part of the Mas i Mas Festival.
Following a band around for a whole day is a privilege. On July 25, thanks to Ivan Kovačević’s trust, I got to do it with the Barcelona Gipsy balKan Orchestra (BGKO), as part of the Mas i Mas Festival. A band that brings the folk music of the Balkans and Eastern Europe to the stage: festive, intense, full of energy.
I started the day with them at the Here Comes The Sound studio, where they ran through the repertoire before the show. There I met some of the special guests of the evening: Ľubomír Gašpar on cimbalom, Sasha Agranov on cello and legendary Hungarian violinist Roby Lakatos. Hearing them from just a few metres away is a privilege hard to put into words.
But the most important part, for me, is the “meanwhile”: everything that happens before the curtain goes up. The rehearsals, the conversations, the complicity, the setup, the soundcheck… Those hours make you understand that behind a two-hour concert there is a lot of invisible work.
In the afternoon, we moved to the Palau de la Música Catalana. Setup, microphones, lighting, soundcheck. Just before seven, the audience began to fill their seats and the musicians retired to the dressing rooms to get ready for the stage.
The concert was memorable. It lasted nearly two hours, yet the repertoire went by surprisingly fast. The band started with a smaller lineup and, piece by piece, the rest of the musicians and the special guests joined in, turning the stage into a true celebration. Magali Sare and the magnificent Margherita Abita were the great vocal protagonists. When the encores came, the audience stood up: a packed Palau burst into a long ovation.
Afterwards, in the lobby, the musicians greeted the audience, signed records and thanked everyone for the warmth of the night. And as if Barcelona itself wanted to join the party, a heavy storm forced us to wait a while before leaving. A perfect ending to an intense day full of music and photographs.
